Self-Inflicted Pain
November 14th, 2003 - 12:54 am
Michael Moore went to Germany and slammed America up and down for all the usual reasons
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VodkaPundit
Nah, using a hammer would require a European willing to work. They’re too busy perfecting the art of sloth…
We don’t have passports? What’s that blue thing in my desk drawer that says Passport? I’m confused now. He is SOOO bad.
IRAQI PROGRESS
Ahmad Chalabi has an op-ed in USA Today saying things are going quite well and urging a quick turnover: It is difficult for non-Iraqis to…
Passports? Well, since I do not need a passport to travel from my home in Massachusetts to my favorite vaca. spots in NH, ME and VT (and even Quebec! License and Birth Cert. are enough) I do not have one.
Now, our German cousins who vaca. on the French Riviera or ski the Swiss/Italian Alps, that’s another story.
“D” raises a very interesting point:
One reason many Americans don’t have passports is the absence of need. Conversely, until the implementation of the EU, a European would NEED a passport, if they simply wanted to take a vacation in the mountains or by the sea (depending on where they were from).
But w/ the creation of the EU, they no longer need passports. So, in 20 years, say, how many Europeans will automatically have passports?
Of course, at the rate the EU is going, passports will probably still be required, as identification papers….
This reminds me of an encounter I had recently with a young Austrian guy (he was probably about my age, 23). Now, there was drinking involved, so booze may have played a role (or several roles) here.
Basically, he was arguing that people in Nashville don’t have any culture. I’ll be honest; he wasn’t arguing, he was preaching. And the more that we discussed/argued, the more arrogant he became, ultimately resorting to rolling his eyes and throwing a disgusting little chuckle/giggle in my face. His laugh was like the giggly-girly-sissy laugh of Maud’s friend in The Big Lebowski. Additionnaly, the more that he revealed on his opinion, the more I realized that he felt this way about America, not just Nashville.
Fuck you, Austrian guy. Americans perceive culture with appreciative tolerance. It’s NOT one of our main goals and NOT considered an important factor in understanding/judging another country. If you think Nashvillians don’t have culture, I owe it to people like Johnny Cash to punch you in your rat-face, you pompous ass.
AH! Rant n’ Rave Friday, anyone?
Who needs a passport nowadays in the US when the ministry of Homeland Security is watching your movements all day long?
With respect to surveys: Do you dare to cite the figure of the US populations knowing where Israel actually is?
The Old European:
Is it your custom to display your ignorance as broadly as possible?
When was the Department of Homeland Security established? When was there a passport requirement for travel within the United States?
As for surveys, since we don’t consider Israel a threat, unlike your compatriots, I’m not too surprised if relatively few Americans know where Israel is. But tell me, do most Europeans know where Chicago is located? How about Silicon Valley?
Dean,
Chicago is too easy. I’ll bet you can find Islamabad, Pak. or Kinshasa, Congo quite easily as well (similarly sized cities).
OTOH, I do know that most Euros. I have met overseas (while visiting that threat to world peace, Israel) could not find my hometown of Boston or my brother’s home of Boca Raton.
Well, Old European, whoever’s watching me from Homeland Security must be getting terribly bored.
By the way, the U.S. federal government has Departments, not ministries. Good distinction to get down before you accuse Americans of being ignorant of the world outside their country.
Idiot europeans. Israel is probably the only nation w/ nukes that’s NOT a threat…they’re kinda busy, y’know? Can’t exactly threaten the world when people want to kill you in your own backyard every day.
Yeah, we learned in the last two years a lot about how and by which means your government goes about identifying threats in the world (inventing them according to need and exposing one’s own intelligence agents who dare to disagree, etc.) . Iraq wasn’t a threat to the live of US soldiers before you attacked it. Nowadays it obviously is.
Hey, BJ, better to have no culture than one which has no problem gassing people and making lampshades out of their skin and mining the gold fillings out of their teeth.
Obviously you didn’t watch the war movie “The Thin Red Line” with the guy collecting the gold teeth from dead or dying Japanese soldiers. And I don’t remember the US ever asking forgiveness for dropping atomic bombs on two cities.
TOE perfectly exemplifies the head-in-the-sand mindset of Old Europe:
The U.S. government invents threats acccording to need.
Nice. Just ignore him and he’ll go away. No threat unless you perceive it and act on it. Nothing in European history suggests otherwise to you, does it?
Oh, incidentally, are you suggesting based on a fictional movie, based on a fictional book, that Americans are just as guilty of corpse-robbing as people who set up factories to do it? (No, I’m not saying all European did this. But those who did, were Europeans.)
And I don’t recall Japan asking forgiveness for starting a war with us.
funny also how so many self-righteous euros come from countries that either helped the nazis or looked the other way or were in cahoots or were the nazis (i’m lookin at you, sweden, denmark, france, germany, austria, and italy). finland gets some slack because they were facing the left-wing nazis, i.e. the stalinists (who of course became the darlings of too much of the postwar euro left).
i am glad to live in a country that can distinguish between “a peace” and “appease.”
“And I don’t remember the US ever asking forgiveness for dropping atomic bombs on two cities.”
Two words keep penetrating my thoughts on this comment: SISSY and BONEHEAD. Read into yourself…
Don’t need forgiveness. It’s interesting that some former Japanese military are publically saying they’re glad we did it. Millions of more needless death on both sides. Besides, we turned them into an economic powerhouse.
Of course, we did that for old Europe, too, but you guys just can’t seem to keep it going. Must be that Old Europe mentality and culture.
BTW, OE, LGF has an interesting post via Merde. Something about AQ, uranium purchased from the Congo….wait, isn’t the Congo in Africa??? Could it be possible that Brit intel was right? Well, considering that they’re still standing behind the story.
Old European:
One wonders what nation of old Europe you hail from.
If it’s Germany or Russia, or any who fought on the Eastern Front, do you think that such acts were more or less common?
As for “The Thin Red Line,” I can say quite frankly that it sucked as history. For example, count the number of Japanese who are shown surrendering, then consider reading something like “Starvation Island” (by Eric Hammel), or “Guadalcanal Diary” (by Richard Tregaskis), to see whether that aligns with what happened historically.
For that matter, if you happen to be British, or Russian, one might inquire as to what happened to your compatriots who fell to the tender mercies of the Japanese.
As one who is familiar with old Asia, suffice to say that I think there are very few among the Chinese (whose casualties were second, if that, only to that of the USSR in World War II), or the Filipinos (whose capital was the second most damaged Allied city, after Warsaw), or Koreans (whose culture was threatened with being snuffed out) who shed a single tear for what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
But remind me to ask you when YOU apologized, Mr. Nederlander, for you activities in the Dutch East Indies, Mr. Frenchman for the activities in Indochina, or Mr. Belgian for the beautiful administration of the Belgian Congo.
When I went to Europe, I had a passport, but no one asked me for it. My military ID was all that was required when I came over to your continent to assist in protecting you from the late, unlamented (by most) Soviet Union, TOE.
No thanks necessary.
Ask for forgiveness for doing what was necessary to stop a war that affected the entire world and saved millions of lives. Hmm, yeah, that sounds like typical head-up-their-butt European thinking. I’m sure Germany and Japan are real sorry for starting all this, too. Oh, that’s right, ask the Germans and they didn’t do anything wrong in WWII. In fact, according to most of the 40 and under crowd, the holocaust is a figment of those “goddam Jews” imaginations.
I lived in Europe for a total of 7 years, including Germany during reunification. Europeans by and large are not much more than spoiled children. Germans work a 4 1/2 day work week, free health care, 30 days of vacation and a wealth of other government mandated perks that are sucking their economy dry and turning them into the second most whiney country behind the cheese eating surrender monekys, the French.
As to Saddam not being a threat to the U.S., even if that is true (which I don’t believe) how many innocent Iraqi’s have to thank us for the fact that they weren’t fed feet-first into an industrial shredder before we stop apologizing for saving a country.
Let this Old American say that very few of us give a fig about Europe, young or old. That’s the truth. Live with it.
We just don’t care….. We have everything we need right here from sea to shinning sea.
Get it.
We don’t care about you ……
Iraq wasn’t a threat to the live of US soldiers before you attacked it. Nowadays it obviously is.
The European credo:
Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.
I just hope there are a few new Europeans who’ve learned more from history than the Old Europeans. Otherwise, that continent is in for (another) heap o misery in the future.
Not exactly Bashir. Speak no evil unless it’s towards the JOOOOOSSSS and Americans.
Does anybody else detect a faint whiff of jealousy from the direction of the old european and the Austrian asshat?
OE: did I say anything about Iraq? At all?
IMO Iraq was not a threat to the US, that’s about as far as I personally could’ve cared: if Saddam had continued to be ignored and got far enough to sell chemical weapons to terrorist groups, long as they didn’t come here I could give half a rat’s, that’s your problem. But as usual, we jump in playing world’s cop and y’all will thank us for it years from now by forgetting all about it and blaming the next problem to come up on us.
If someone I’d want in office ever gets elected, consider your free ride revoked.
Well, b, as far as Iraq being a threat to America, have you read the Weekly Standard article on Iraq and AQ ties? They’re solid.
Don’t forget, Saddam was the largest money-launderer in the world.
From Richard Pryor:
[Southern Redneck voice]“Did you hear what them little yellow b*st*rds did? S**t they bombed Pearl Harbor…we’re gonna have to clean their clocks!”
And we did.
Mark my words, the next 9-11 could well take place in Europe, not America. Appeasement does not buy safety, only contempt.
D.
FWIW You don’t need a passport to travel between the Schengen states of the EU (that is most of mainland Europe). Its quite possible to (in fact I did last month) drive from Amsterdam to the Cote d’Azur without once showing a passport. Depending on the route that could involve 3-6 countries (Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Germany and Italy).
This is such a terribly ignorant point of view. I am a Dutch Jew living in Amsterdam. There are many people here in the Jewish community that totally disagree with the policies taken by the state of israel. Apparently many European citizens feel this way too by saying israel represents a threat to world peace. To claim that being against israel is the same as being anti-semetic is just ignorant. Your criticism of europeans seems to come not from any personal knowledge of europeans, but rather what is read in the media.
Yoav,
Get back on your meds.
Francis,
Dean points out after my 1st comment that EU rules permit reduced checks at intra-continental borders. This was not the case in the past. I recall a story of a tourguide I knew as a kid. He led group of Germans touring the US in the early 80s. When he announced on the bus that they were about to cross a state border suddenly everyone began rummaging through their purses to find their passports. Obviously everyone anticipated a checkpoint stop. My guess is that such was the usual practice when crossing European borders at that time.
Since passports are evidently no longer the continental requirementthey once were will future generations of EU member state citizens be as “unenlightened” as Americans?
–Your criticism of europeans seems to come not from any personal knowledge of europeans, but rather what is read in the media. –
And what about personal knowledge of Americans? Where are the Europeans getting theirs from?
The blogosphere is making the world smaller, Yoav. There are Americans and Europeans blogging in 2 languages. We’re paying attention.
Believe it or not, some Americans do know European history. And comments from people like Old European just confirm our suspicions. And as far as this American is concerned, you haven’t learned all the lessons of WWII.
Specifically, the lesson was not nationalism and flag-waving, it’s feeding others to the alligators first hoping you’ll be last. But the alligator always comes and at some point, you’re going to have to start hunting the alligators at great cost to yourself and your fellow citizens.
The basic simplisme question is, are you with the hunters or the alligators?
The other basic question is, Yoav, we all want peace, but on whose terms? Because, you see if you’ve been paying attention, the terms were dictated back in the 7th century, reiterated in 1998 and constantly being referred to especially in the last year. Those terms are unacceptable to most Americans. And we just can’t figure out why those terms are OK to Europeans.
And Yoav, you do know there’s a net outflow of Jews from France to Israel, don’t you? Maybe it has something to do w/the attacks and burning of synagogues? (sp)
Here’s what Yoav is ignoring. When the Arabs say “Peace in the Middle East” they mean the destruction of Israel and the extermination of its Jewish inhabitants. The Palestinian Authority is Phase I of Arafat’s multiphase strategy to achieve this, which he defined back in 1974 and has seen no need to change in the last 29 years. The “Anti-Zionists” in Europe (and in the US too) seem perfectly content with this goal. So the anti-Israel hysteria so prevalent among the Europeans is anti-Semitic, since if implemented it will lead to another round of Jewish genocide, and the proponents of it, like their Arab pals, drop the Zionist label and replace it with “Kill the Jews” often enough that it takes willfull ignorance to miss it.
All the fuss about the occupation is a red herring. There would have been no occupation but for the attempt by several Arab states to bring peace (as defined above) to the Middle East back in 1967. There would have been no occupation for long if the Arabs had made a real peace with Israel, but they would not do it. The Palestinians would have a state if they had carried out their obligations under the Oslo treaty or accepted Barak’s offer three years ago, but they prefer killing the Jews to having a state. Yoav’s blindness to all this is the real ignorance.
Though it seems that plenty of ink has already been spent trying to enlighten someone who gets their history from hollywood, I can’t resist.
Dear The Old European
If you watch our T.V. as well as movies you could have found out that George Washington had a mistress. How european of him. Of course after the fact the producers and writers of this “docu-drama” admitted that they had no factual basis for this but it spiced up the show.
Revisionist history is bad enough but hollywood history is ridiculous. Since you are quoting them for your facts, I must assume that your opinions are equally so.
Hey Yoav – Is the reason why so many Dutch Jews are against the policies of Israel is the fear that if they support Israel your dutch neighbors (you know, the ones who stop talking when you walk into a room, but don’t worry they weren’t talking about you my little jewboy) might let you know how they really feel about you money hungry Christ killers? Just wondering.
Pls tell Greta i say hi from a proud American Jew.